I’m so excited to be going to GRL. It’s a huge thing for a girl travelling all the way from Australia! And I’m totally amazed I’m getting to go as a Supporting Author. Just wow!

I wanted to get to know my fellow Supporting Authors a little more and thought you might like to as well. So I asked them if they minded answering a few questions. So this series of posts over the coming weeks, will be from GRL Supporting Authors.

I hope you enjoy!

Meet Lissa Kasey

Is this your first GRL? If not, do you have any advice for authors and/or readers who are attending? If it’s your first, what made you sign up this year?

Lissa: This will be my fourth GRL. I attended NOLA, ABQ, and Chicago. I’d say advice for first time attending is to be yourself. There will always be clicks and groups at any affair like this. Don’t feel down if you’re not part of the “cool kid group,” you’re pretty cool for just being there anyway.

What are you most looking forward to about GRL this year?

Lissa: San Diego—to which I’ve never been, and seeing old friends. I think I go to these more now to revisit the people who have become close over the years rather than promote or meet other authors. I like meeting the readers, but I’m very awkward and am very shy around new people. I will say hello but I will probably say something stupid. Who knows? Stick around long enough and you might be part of the reason I go next year. 🙂

What inspired you to start writing in the gay romance genre?

Lissa: Short answer is that I don’t write gay romance. I write more than just romance. Most of my stories are centered around characters who happen to be GLBTA in a crazy world. There’s always a side of romance, but rarely is it the focus. Why gay characters? I relate to them, I guess. For years I was big into the paranormal romance genre (reading not writing), but it was so unrealistic and I’d been writing about gay characters since I was a teen—long before it was cool. I guess it was a natural progression for me to take my love of the urban fantasy genre and mash it with my love for gay characters. Unlike most it has nothing to do with the sex for me.

What was the first m/m romance book you wrote? Can you share a little about the story?

Lissa: I actually self published it like 20 years ago not knowing anything about the business at the time. Of course it sold like 17 copies. It was called Dreamwalker and was about a character named Alexei who had the ability to walk through people’s dreams, learn things, and even control them. It was semi-high fantasy, which I don’t write anymore. I cringe looking back at it.

What book are you currently reading or have just finished reading? Tell us a little about it.

Lissa: I’ve been rereading the Patricia Briggs  Mercy Thompson series. It’s one of the few paranormal romance series I have stuck with, mostly because there’s very little romance like in my own work, and the stories are much broader about the characters than just love and sex.

Please share an interesting fact your readers may not know about you?

Lissa: I’m asexual, demiromantic. Which a lot of people go wtf? Because I write romance with sex in it they don’t believe I could possibly be asexual. I write sex because we live in a sexually pressurized world, but I think there’s some aspect of my views in all the characters, even the highly sexualized ones like Seiran Rou from my Dominion series. Other ends of the spectrum think that asexuals have it easy, just don’t have sex, right? Except that the world teaches us to be normal, gay, straight, bi, trans, whatever, you have to want to have sex. I love this genre. Though I admit I skip 90% of the sex scenes in every book I read—which makes some books in the m/m genre very short. I wish our genre would grow beyond the physical aspect. There are a few writers who do it really well and a lot who don’t. I hope that I can find more stories in the future from writers who don’t add sexual intimacy to define their character’s sexuality, great example of this is Andrea Speed, whose writing I adore. I admit to caving to the pressure myself and hopefully as my writing grows there will be more of what I want to write and less of what is required by the genre.

Thanks for having me!

You are very welcome. Thanks for the honest and open answers. I look forward to meeting you in October.

About Lissa

Lissa Kasey/Sam Kadence lives in St. Paul, MN, has a Bachelor’s Degree in Creative Writing, and collects Asian Ball Joint Dolls who look like her characters. She has three cats who enjoy waking her up an hour before her alarm every morning and sitting on her lap to help her write. She can often be found at Anime Conventions masquerading as random characters when she’s not writing about boy romance.

 

Social media:

https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLissaKasey

https://www.facebook.com/SamKadence

Featured book from Lissa Kasey

Blurb

Oliver “Ollie” Petroskovic’s life as an international supermodel was heading in the right direction. He worked part-time for his brother at his detective agency—Petroskovic Haven Investigations—and had just bought his dream house. But all that changed when he found his brother dead, a victim of PTSD-induced suicide.

Almost a year later, Ollie is trying to keep his brother’s business afloat, but can’t get his PI license. Then his brother’s best friend, Kade Alme, shows up, fresh from the battlefield after a close brush with death. Kade is looking for a new life, in more ways than one, and with PI license in hand, he’s exactly what Ollie needs to keep PHI running.

When one of Ollie’s childhood friends gets in trouble, Ollie feels he has to help. Kade insists on investigating if only to keep Ollie safe. Neither realizes the danger they’re in as someone tries to tear them apart before they can find solid ground together.

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